Encounters (part of the series Tangled Up in Blue), 2021, 624 pieces of porcelain imprinted with the interior of clenched fist and treated with fingerprints of cobalt carbonate before firing, wire, collected media reports on fatal encounters with law enforcement in Cook County, IL for the period 2000-2021. Dimensions variable; 624 porcelain pieces, each 2.5 in. long, wired together to make 22 strands varying in length from 20-122 in. Select images show installation suspended over 75 pounds of white sand.
Statement about Encounters
When I learned of the murder of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago last March, it went through me like an arrow. In the photo that circulated all over the news and social media, I saw in his contagious smile the students I’ve gotten to know as a teaching artist, my own sons, and the teammates and classmates they’ve had over the years. I saw a child.
I wanted to understand how it is that interactions with law enforcement can have such lethal results. I discovered a citizen-run organization that collects media reports of any encounter with law enforcement that results in a fatality. These include instances when an officer uses deadly force, when a person is fatally struck in a vehicular pursuit, or when an individual takes their own life, among other cases. I looked closely at the data for Cook County, Illinois, and was struck by the volume of cases, by how many stories and names I recognized, and by how many I had never heard before.
Encounters is the result of my journey through this data. I read every reported story of a life lost in the presence of law enforcement between the dates January 1, 2000, and April 30, 2021, in Cook County. As I read each story, I rolled a small wad of porcelain clay in my hands. When I finished I said the deceased’s name aloud, and made a fist, squeezing the clay in my palm. I repeated this process for all 624 individuals whose stories were reported. Before firing the porcelain, I rubbed cobalt carbonate into my hands and loosely touched the forms with my fingertips, leaving random remnants of blue on their surfaces. I strung the fired pieces together with steel wire, by year.
